Joe,
You make great points, but I look at it like this - I grew up in New Jersey learning to play this game by watching Mizerak, Murphy, Colavita, and at times Mosconi. When I read your post last night, the first thought that came to mind was ... how would Willie have reacted if I elevated my cue and jumped over the stack to make a ball hanging in the pocket... then I tried to imagine the look that he would have had on his face. It wasn't pretty.
I ran that same scenario through my mind and I just changed the legend that was sitting in the chair. In my imaginary situations, the Miz got out of his chair, looked at me, then the table - his eyes shifting back to the cue ball and that back to me with this confused grin on his face. He then said... "what the hell are you doing?" lol. Colavita basically did the same thing and then he grabbed the cue ball. Murphy laughed his ass off at me, and I pictured Willie getting pissed off and actually calling me an A-hole. IMO, that's pretty close to what would have happened in reality in all 4 cases.
Purist? Perhaps so. However, I would never want to embarrass myself like that with those ghosts watching over my shoulder. As crazy as it may seem, that's how my logic works in this situation.